Monday, March 7, 2011

Grandaddy at My Age...Daddy as a Teenager

Last night as we waited for an apple pie to come out of the oven, my Grandaddy's sweet tooth and diabetes came up.

"How old was he when he when he was diagnosed?"

"Thirty eight...and we wouldn't have found out then if Momma hadn't tricked him into going to the doctor. He thought he was takin' her....boy that's one of the few times he ever really got mad with me."

"Why with you?"

"I wasn't so sure about them people he'd seen...so, I set him an appointment in Tallahassee. He just did not like goin' to the Dr."

I'm 38. Same age as my Grandaddy while all this was goin' on. My Daddy would have been a teenager or maybe his very early twenties.

How am I suppose to actually process and conceive a story where my Grandaddy's my age and my daddy's a teenager?

What like...Fred made an appointment for George and....NO.

Whenever it happened it happened in my mind in the early 80's...that's when and how I mostly remember my Daddy and Grandaddy together before Gradaddy passed away.

12 comments:

In the beginning … when was the beginning? If there was a beginning, at what time was it? Which clock should we refer to? Can time be said to have a “beginning” and “end” without reference to a time at which they occurred? But isn't that self-contradictory? Perhaps there's some ultimate clock by which all endings and beginnings can be measured? Can time pass without change? How can you remember something if the past no longer exists and, if the future exists, why can't we pre-member it? Think long enough about the nature of time and you'll realise it's about the craziest notion you can ever attempt to wrap your grey noodle matter about. And I speak as a former philosopher.

In the Biblical sense the phrase … “in the beginning” … is interesting as it is then qualified with “was the word” and “the word was God”. Without words there can be no conception of beginning or God, for words are intimately connected with reason, thought and justification – a conceptual framework through which we organise and systematise experience. Indeed, the phrasing implies a similitude between word, beginning and God: word is God and a beginning without beginning (in the sense that it is only understood as being such with hindsight, but never precisely so – to the fraction of a second; the precise divide).

I have had a few thoughts along a not too disimilar line recently. Some of the things Isaac has been learning and doing, and us watching and nuturing him, and some moments we have shared are going to stick with me, even if just the sentiments, not the specifics, until the end of my days, and he won't remember any of them.

Then it got me to thinking how my mum and dad did that with me, and all that love, effort, time, and memory they have from it, whereas I don't remember any of it. Sure I know it had an impact of making me a decent person, and as well rounded as I could be (they ain't miracle workers).

Needless to say I said thankyou next time I saw them, for whatever that is worth!

I applaud their efforts and Lord knows they deserve it...I'm sure they did the best they could...not to mention the long suffering Mrs.Adam... but let's not get carried away...let's do what we must do with the Sister and call it a work in progress and thank them for their continuing efforts.

:)

I do worry about that thing.

I don't deny their own younger existence, but I can't place myself in that episode..I can't concieve of my self as being older than or a peer of either of them.

I do have a lot of vivid memories of my Momma and Daddy being younger than I am now...especially my Momma. I have lots of memories of her in her early 20's.

The Boy won't internalize the memory of bursting with pride at having *****ed on the floor while potty training, but he'll have a memory of wanting to strangle me every time I bring it up to his girlfiends. Funny how memory works. :0

NAT...you are on a roll. Don't stop...you might actually scare Allan off his tractor.

That passage about the Word is probably as profound as any in the Old Testament...for what your own about and what it suggest about the nature of Christ's existence.

There's a sense in which solipsism is correct: the world only exists for you, expect some mistake "you" as exclusively being "me"; there's only one "I", but there are many eyes on this world which make it what it is. "I am the way" - all "Is" are the way. The way is shared, for better or worse.